Sign This!

Some months back I wrote about the most asinine Army sayings, and "It is what it is" topped the list.

The advent of the NFL season makes it more appropriate than ever, but I digress.

An even more idiotic phrase is now vying for the top spot. "You signed on the dotted line" has to be right up there, not for the frequency of its utterance, but the ignorance of its meaning.

Let's put it in context. Leaders like to use this weapon of wit when Soldiers endeavor to complain about any illogical Army policy or procedure. An example: In a forward operating area, Soldiers are required to wear bright green reflective belts any time they have PT uniforms on. It's supposed to keep us safe by making us visible, but besides being a huge drag for a number of reasons, it isn't consistent with two facts. (1) The PT uniform has substantial reflectivity built in and (2) We can stroll about at our leisure anytime and anywhere in our camouflage uniform!

"This doesn't make sense," says the junior Soldier.

"You signed on the dotted line," replies his leader in a quick bout of argumentation.

It's supposed to convince us to abandon our human instinct to reason for eight years.

First of all, I don't recall any line being dotted, but that’s beside the point, which is, that nowhere in that contract does it say I have to consistently follow idiots.

I am not arguing that the existence of idiots in the Army nullifies my contract. But it certainly increases the likelihood that'll I'll complain, and simultaneously decreases the likelihood that I am going to sign a second contract.

Please, if you are an E-8 or above and you are reading this, don't say things like, "You signed the dotted line." It makes you sound foolish. And I'd like to have to stop adding sayings to my list.

Army Sneetches

Now, the Star-Belly Sneetches had bellies with stars.
The Plain-Belly Sneetches had none upon thars.
Those stars weren’t so big. They were really quite small.
You might think such a thing wouldn’t matter at all.

Soldiers, as Dr. Suess’s classist characters once did, wear our rank on our chest. The Army wants people to know who they are talking to, and that’s a good thing. But it’s not exactly the best way to facilitate good communication.

Once, as a young substitute teacher at a high school, I had parked my car in the faculty lot. The school’s principal stopped me and said I couldn’t park there. Annoyed, I politely informed him that I was a teacher, not a student.

As an older teacher told me at that moment, “he’s such a doofus.”

The Army doesn’t like doofuses, so they identify everybody clearly and boldly.

With rank so prominent in the equation, they forget the other two identifiers, the Soldier’s name and the US Army label on every single uniform. Aren’t these more important?

But, because they had stars, all the Star-Belly Sneetches
Would brag, “We’re the best kind of Sneetch on the beaches.”
With their snoots in the air, they would sniff and they’d snort
“We’ll have nothing to do with the Plain-Belly sort!”
And, whenever they met some, when they were out walking,
They’d hike right on past them without even talking.

The rank insignia becomes an impediment to communication and an excuse for arrogant leaders to look down upon juniors and remind the latter to take it from the former.

Thank goodness we have civilian lives. After a deployment or drill, most Soldiers will go back home and back to work where artificial castes don’t prohibit good communication, cooperation, and respect.

Back to that place where all the Sneetches forget about stars
and whether they had one, or not, upon thars.

Trapped in an Army Box

Sir Arthur Clarke is best known for his novel, 2001: A Space Odyssey. A science-fiction writer and futurist, he is also known for the Law that bears his name: “When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”

Clarke is saying that when experienced people see possibility, they are being visionary. When they see limits, they are just plain shortsighted and stubborn.

Experience is supposed to bestow all sorts of wisdom, and nowhere more than in the Army. Senior leaders are to guide and mentor younger, less-experienced soldiers and prepare them to meet any kind of challenge.

Unless keeping one’s boots laced up tightly is what passes as challenging in today’s Army, then our leaders are failing us.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates famously urged warriors to think creatively: “An unconventional era of warfare requires unconventional thinkers," Secretary Gates told Air War College students in 2008.

"For the kinds of challenges America will face, the armed forces will need principled, creative, reform-minded leaders."

The secretary conceded that it will be difficult. "Virtually every institution is organized in a way to stifle out-of-the-box thinking," he said.

That’s an understatement in the Army. We have built the walls up so high that we’re suffocating.

People can only imagine what they know today, and it takes creativity and humility to consider what we haven’t experienced. The Army needs to encourage such thinking more, and admit that, very often, the most creative minds are at the bottom of the totem pole.

That’s what makes Gates’ admonition so tough—it assumes that current leaders aren’t doing enough. They are, after all, the most rigid and least humble of all.

And Clarke? Well, in the real world, elderly scientists are very near their expiration.

Guard More Important Than Ever

The AP recently reported a reduction in National Guard recruiting. Ostensibly, the Pentagon doesn’t need such a large reserve component, and the Guard is oversized. Other theories include “suspicions inside the Guard and out that the reductions are part of an effort to shift the burden of fighting overseas onto the active-duty Army and ease the public outcry over the way that Guard units…have been sent on long, repeated combat tours in Iraq.”

Such outcries are usually standard fare in the demagogic ramblings of politicians who mask an anti-military worldview with feigned concern for service-members and their families. But if the public at large has reservations about the Guard’s role in the overall national military strategy, it is misplaced. America has long relied on its citizen soldiers. It should do so even more.

The Guard legacy goes back to 1636, when the Massachusetts Bay Colony formally organized its militia companies. Thus the National Guard, a direct descendant of the Massachusetts militia, is older than the United States itself.

The importance of our militia is enshrined in the Constitution. Article I, Section 8 assumes the existence of state militias and authorizes the Congress to call on them “to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.”

Guardsmen and their militiamen forebears have served the people and their representatives with distinction since the Revolution. In all our major wars, victorious American Soldiers usually went home to families, farms, businesses, and careers, leaving the bloody mess of battle and its aftermath to the politicians.

Our founders entrusted the security of our Republic to its citizens acting as part time Soldiers. Although the Continental Army, commanded by George Washington, was instrumental in guaranteeing American independence, a successful break from the British Crown would have been unthinkable without the militia, both militarily and politically.

Politically because colonists took up arms to defend their rights against tyranny, and proved in action that such a defense was their natural and rational right. Mobilizing the citizenry for a common cause helped solidify public opinion in favor of the politics of independence.

Militias made political sense, but they also understood that it was imperative to the cause of liberty. To ask men to make the sacrifices that war demands in defense of their freedom makes for the most politically-active and engaged citizenry. An armed citizenry willing to fight for freedom also keeps the government honest, and its actions close to the will of the people.

The Bill of Rights famously refers to a “well regulated Militia,” as a necessary condition “to the security of a free State.” The Continental Army was all but disbanded after the Revolution, but the militias remained in place.

Today there are many practical reasons for the American people to put its faith in citizen Soldiers. For one, Guardsmen and women have valuable skills that military academies and training camps can’t teach. Our Guard force is filled with accountants, firefighters, plumbers, truckers, police officers, teachers, nurses, and more. They represent our nation more genuinely than a full-time active force ever could. The men and women in the Guard are more grounded in the communities they represent, and thus are ambassadors to the world. The Soldiers of the United States National Guard are the best our nation has to offer.

Maintaining a force of citizen warriors costs much less, too. They train regularly without requiring the burdensome costs of permanent garrison, salary, and family benefits.

With the recruitment reductions, they are becoming even more elite. Minimum test scores are up, bonuses down, and age and physical requirements more stringent. Still, folks are lining up, eager to serve.

Our active army plays an important role in our national defense, but one that ought to be minimized if we truly want to advance the cause of liberty at home and abroad.
Technology can fill the gaps left by a reduction in active forces. Advanced logistics and a strengthened national will to fight important wars—fueled by the understanding that America’s citizens will be willing to fight only the most important wars—will enable fast mobilization of reserve and Guard components.

The last thing America needs is a bloated, full-time, professional army. The founders were mistrustful of that, and we should be, too. Our founding fathers have been proven prescient on so many counts since. Too often we have ignored their example and warnings to our peril.

(Photo by SGT Teddy Wade)